Currently, it is difficult to repair a patient's trachea, main bronchus, or other respiratory system passageways (i.e., airways) after removal of a portion of the airway. The removed portion of the airway may be too large to reconnect the ends on either side of the resection, and current implant options may be too expensive or ineffective.
One option for reconnecting two ends of an airway is to grow a replacement implant on a scaffold using the patient's cells. However, it may take days or weeks for the cells to fully develop on the scaffold, which can be costly. Furthermore, multiple surgical procedures may be required to first harvest cells from the patient and then implant the new portion of the trachea or other airway. The airway replacement portions grown on a scaffold may also fail to structurally and functionally mimic a human airway. For example, replacement tracheas grown on a scaffold may not account for the differences between cartilage rings and smooth muscle tissue in a real trachea.
Another current option for repairing a patient's airway is to replace a removed portion with tissue from another species. However, using tissue from another living (or previously living) source carries risks. The implanted tissue may transfer an infection to the patient, or the patient may reject the foreign tissue.